The majority of South African businesses and many residential customers are currently connected to a 4Mbps ADSL connection. The bandwidth figure is important, but by no means the only factor in determining the performance of your internet connection. Internet browsing, more commonly known as web traffic, is highly sensitive to Round Trip Times (RTT), or commonly known as ping times.

Consider the analogy of plumbing and the internet, with your ADSL connection being the proverbial pipe from the internet to your office or home. A larger pipe does not mean the water will flow faster, it will just allow more water to flow. The speed of the water flow does not increase, as is the case with the internet, which travels at the speed of light.

As with a water pipe, the more you stretch the length of the pipe, the longer it takes for the traffic to travel from the web server to the computer. If the web traffic’s source is the UK, your ping time is about 250-300 milliseconds. The web server to-and-fro communication will slow the website load time down significantly — no matter how big you make your pipe. With a locally-hosted web server, the pipe becomes dramatically shorter, around 20-50 milliseconds, speeding up your web browsing dramatically.

Companies like Google want you to have the best browsing experience possible. This is one of the major factors for Google putting local content caches into South Africa, and even other African countries like Kenya. It’s all about the user experience, and it’s no coincidence that Google’s websites are fast.

To take advantage of the physical ping time limitations, host your website or web application where the majority of your users are. If they are local, host locally, and the same logic holds true for overseas. Hosting locally lends itself to businesses whose main target market resides in SA. Sites hosted locally load considerably faster – leaving the visitor with a much better user experience. An additional bonus, is that most local ISPs provide excellent customer support, with 24/7 access to support staff via live chat, email or telephonically. Bottom line is the users will get the best experience and love you for it.

The ADSL upgrade from 4Mbps to 10Mbps is a good thing though. It will allow you high speed access to local content at the same time as allowing more concurrent data connections for those offices that 4Mb/s doesn’t cut it for. Only expect a faster browsing experience if your 4Mb/s line was previously congested.

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Does more broadband equal a faster Internet experience?

This is great news for customers who are looking for a better Internet experience, and don’t want the hassle of being capped when they reach their monthly limit. With a fixed monthly cost for bandwidth, customers will also be able to make better use of other online services, such as online backup, hosted email and server hosting.

Telkom currently is testing a 10Mbps line, which is set to be rolled out to areas that can support this higher speed. Once this becomes official, we will be able to launch a package that accommodates this line speed as well.

Please note that this service is not designed for automated 24/7 downloading of large amounts of data, which might cause quality issues for others using the same service. Make sure you are familiar with our usage policies before purchasing this service. We generally recommend this product for those who frequently use between 7 to 10GB or more data per month.

Clients that order this service now will have to wait 2 – 5 days for the service to be activated.

For more information on our Uncapped DSL products, please visit www.rsaweb.co.za.

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New Uncapped DSL product

Recent developments in the South African broadband landscape have empowered us to pass on significant broadband savings to our customers. It’s about time.

With immediate effect, we are pleased to announce price cuts on our Super, Premium and Ultra DSL products. Selected packages have been discounted by as much as 60%, which will bring much needed relief to broadband consumers.

Go check out our new broadband pricing structure today.

Existing DSL customers will be billed according to our new pricing starting from next month’s (November) billing cycle.

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Broadband Price Cuts!

RSAWEB formally launched it’s new Partner Program at a breakfast event held at the exquisite Ambassador Hotel in Bantry Bay, Cape town Monday. The launch was well supported despite the prevailing hazardous weather conditions (see previous blog post!) Capetonians have been contending with of late. The launch was the culmination of a lengthily process of refining and streamlining the former the program to make it more efficient, partner-friendly and include new product opportunities.

Attendees were treated to a presentation on the current & future opportunities for Internet service providers in South African markets and the complementing range of exciting new products available through the Partner Program such as: Server Virtualization, Hosted Zimbra, Online Backup and Dedicated Servers and how these services can be best leveraged to offer added value to clients.

The program is now available to all entrepreneurially minded businesses looking to build on their existing offerings and create new revenue streams and business opportunities.

To find out more or sign up for the program, click here.

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Partner Program launch

Thank you to everyone who popped in and chatted to us.

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Home Makers Fair covered

Before we can award any medals, lets look at which events our broadband olympians compete in. This is important because contrary to what some people might assume – when it comes to broadband internet, one size DOES NOT FIT ALL. Different users have different needs.

As a good starting point we’ve chosen the following events: ‘Performance’, ‘Mobility’, ‘Value for money at home’ & ‘Value for money at work’.

Lets see how they performed:

1) Performance
Who won the gold?: Ultra DSL
- Ultra DSL Tackles demanding internet needs head on: Voice over IP (VoIP) services like skype, online gaming & video streaming.

2) Mobility
Who won the gold?: HSDPA
- HSDPA provides maximum wireless broadband coverage across the Vodacom cellular network. A winner for the user who’s always on the go.

3) Value for money at home
Who won the gold?: iBurst
- iBurst is a reliable and affordable product for home users who don’t need anything fancy. Great entry-level packages.

4) Value for money at work
Who won the gold?: Business DSL Unlimited
- Business DSL Unlimited delivers high performance broadband with no bandwidth limits. The ideal solution for SME’s with high internet usage.

Not sure about which event your broadband solution should be competing in? Not to worry. Our broadband consultants are on standby to coach you through the process.

To speak to one of our consultants call: 0861 RSAWEB

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The Broadband Olympics